The original three PlayStation games, developed by Naughty Dog, were purely linear 3D platformers and became massively successful. The series was famed for its humorous cartoony tone (losing a life often forms an amusing slapstick death for Crash, and nearly all levels - and even some of the characters - have ridiculously Punny Names, for example). Naughty Dog followed the trilogy up with a racing spinoff, but before they could begin work on another platforming game, Executive Meddling forced them to move on to other franchises while the Crash series was handed to new developers and went multi-platform. Unfortunately, no single developer really stuck and the series ended up bouncing around for a while, which led to a lack of consistency. At first, the new developers tried to emulate Naughty Dog's style, but these games were ridiculed as soulless carbon copies.

Starting with Crash Twinsanity, the fifth main series game, developers attempted to inject new life into the franchise by exaggerating the humor and giving the series a more self-aware vibe. Unfortunately, Twinsanity ended up being overly ambitious and the final product was rushed and poorly-received by critics, though fan reception was much better than any other post-Naughty Dog Crash Bandicoot game.

The series finally found a consistent set of developers with Radical Entertainment, who made the divisive decision to dramatically redesign the entire cast and rewrite their personalities to feature a much larger amount of pop-culture based non sequitur humor spaced throughout gameplay chit-chat (though the older games were still referenced occasionally, so this wasn't technically a Continuity Reboot). After making a racing spinoff game, Radical took a swing at producing the sixth and seventh main entries in the series, Crash of the Titans and Crash: Mind Over Mutant. These games dropped the emphasis on platforming to instead focus on co-op melee combat and a "jacking" mechanic where Crash could control defeated enemies.

However, Radical's gamble failed to pay off, as these games performed below expectations. Radical began work on a full-fledged Continuity Reboot that would bring Crash more in line with his classic design, but then the entire studio got the ax and the franchise was relegated to mobile phone games. Luckily, though, these games sold remarkably well (with the last of the mobile games quietly reverting the characters back to their classic designs).

After six years with no sign of life from the franchise, and just in time for his 20th year of existence, Crash made his triumphant return to consoles in 2016 with a playable appearance in a game-within-a-game in Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, another game made by Naughty Dog. Shortly afterwards, it was announced that the original three Naughty Dog games will be receiving HD remakes for the PlayStation 4 developed by Vicarious Visions (the GBA games and Nitro Kart's developer) titled the N. Sane Trilogy.

The Crash franchise has a long history of crossing over with the Spyro the Dragon games. Their initial developers, Insomniac Games and Naughty Dog have been close allies for years. They worked on Spyro and Crash literally right next to each other, in the same room. Jak and Daxter and Ratchet & Clank have a similar relationship for the same reason.

When a redesigned Spyro appeared in the new, wildly successful Skylanders franchise, it was only a matter of time before Crash followed suit. In Skylanders Imaginators, Crash and Cortex each have their own playable toys that unlock an extra Crash-themed level, and thanks to the toys' forward compatibility, they should remain playable in all future Skylanders games. Furthermore, Crash makes his Western Animation debut in the Netflix animated series, Skylanders Academy, Suddenly Voiced and with strong hints that Crash will be receiving his own animated series soon.

Games

List of games:

Crash Bandicoot (1996) — In an effort to create a bunch of anthropomorphic, hyper-intelligent animals to serve as an army to lead them to world domination, Dr. Neo Cortex and Dr. Nitrus Brio create the Evolv-O-Ray, a device that can mutate any animal into a super-strong, hyper-intelligent warrior, and the Cortex Vortex, a brain manipulation device that can make anyone and anything a blind follower of Cortex's orders. One of their first experiments with the Evolv-O-Ray is Crash, a bandicoot snatched from the local island wilderness and chosen to serve as the leader of Cortex's army. However, the Cortex Vortex fails on Crash, and he is discarded as a failed specimen while Cortex and Brio prepare to experiment on Crash's love interest, Tawna. The next day, Crash washes up on the shores of N. Sanity Beach and vows to defeat Cortex and rescue Tawna from his fortress, with the help of a native mask spirit named Aku Aku who wants Crash to take down Cortex so he'll stop polluting the islands.

Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (1997) — One year after the original game, Cortex turns to Crash for help in an effort to prevent the planet Earth from facing certain doom. All the planets in the solar system will align soon, and, according to Cortex, create enough energy to tear the world apart. His solution to the crisis lies in crystals: In the aftermath of the original game he discovered the Master Crystal, but that alone will not be enough - he needs Crash to collect 25 Slave Crystals so he can contain the energy of the planetary alignment and save Earth. There's more to it than that, however...

Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (1998) — In the aftermath of Crash 2, an evil elemental mask named Uka Uka is freed from his underground prison, and is revealed to have been the true mastermind behind Neo Cortex's schemes. Seeing as Crash had already collected all the crystals and gems on Earth at the end of Crash 2 and the planet is left without a proper power source for Cortex to use for his next scheme, Uka Uka decides to recruit a scientist by the name of N. Tropy to create the Time Twister, a time machine which Cortex and Uka Uka can use to retrieve the crystals from past and future eras. With the help of Uka Uka's counterpart, Aku Aku, Crash and Coco Bandicoot race to the Time Twister to collect the crystals again before Cortex and Uka Uka get a chance to do so.

Crash Team Racing (1999) — The cast of the previous three games decide to organize a go-karting championship for no apparent reason, until an invading alien named Nitros Oxide arrives, claiming to be the greatest racer in the galaxy and inviting the people of Earth to bring forth their fastest racer to compete against him in a race. Should Oxide win the race, however, he threatens to turn the planet into an intergalactic parking lot and make slaves of all its natives, so the logical thing to do is to organize a championship to see who gets the honour of racing against Oxide and saving Earth once again.

Crash Bash (2000) — The Great Uka Uka decides that it's time to settle his conflict with Aku Aku once and for all, but Aku Aku informs him that they can't fight directly as it is forbidden by the ancients, so he instead suggests that they hold a contest to determine the resolution. Uka Uka relents, and they summon Crash and Cortex to choose their partners. However, Cortex chooses too many players (Koala Kong, Dingodile, N. Brio, Tiny Tiger, and newcomer Rilla Roo), while Crash only has Coco by his side. Aku Aku forces Cortex to relinquish Tiny and Dingodile to the good side to make both sides even, and the contest finally starts.

Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex (2001) — Intending to make up for his past failures, Cortex creates a secret weapon to destroy Crash — a bandicoot named Crunch. To give Crunch the power he needs to accomplish this, Cortex frees the Elementals, a group of masks with destructive powers overearth, water, fire, and air. Meanwhile, Crash and his friends become aware of the natural disasters occurring due to the Elementals, and use Coco's new Portal Chamber to once again collect crystals in order to seal away the Elementals again and stop Crunch and Cortex at all costs. This was the first game to make a leap to a next-gen console, developed by Traveler's Tales' Knutsford division and originally released on the PlayStation 2 and later ported to the Xbox and Nintendo GameCube.

Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure (XS in Europe, 2002) — Cortex develops the Planetary Minimizer and uses it to shrink the earth. Crash learns of this and sets off to retrieve yet more crystals so that Coco can reverse the effects. This is the first game developed by Vicarious Visions. This is also the first Crash game developed for a handheld console (the Game Boy Advance). The selection ofVideo Game Settings makes this game a bit of a portable version of Crash 2, with a bit of Crash 3 thrown in.

Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced (2003) — After the previous game ended with Cortex trapped in his destroyed space station and lost in space, Uka Uka decides to make N. Tropy into his right-hand man in his place. N. Tropy's first act under Uka Uka's employ is to look into the future, and sees a vision of himself surrounded by Crash, Coco, and Crunch. He interprets this as the bandicoots joining their side, so he brings out a new recruit named N. Trance, with the intent on making the bandicoots Brainwashed and Crazy. They proceed to pull the bandicoots into their dimensional hideout, but Aku Aku interferes when they attempt to take Crash, and the villains unknowingly end up taking Fake Crash. Crash must now travel between dimensions, gathering crystals, freeing his friends and Fake Crash from the hypnotism, and stopping N. Tropy and N. Trance from doing any further harm. The second portable game. This one ends with Uka Uka witnessing his failure yet again and deciding to forgo all dragons and take on Crash himself. This plot thread is Left Hanging. Similarly to The Huge Adventure, the selection ofVideo Game Settings makes this game a bit of a portable version of Crash 3, with a bit of Crash 2 thrown in.

Crash Nitro Kart (2003) — One day, Crash and his friends are going about their day when they are suddenly abducted by a UFO. Around the same time, Cortex is working on yet another plot to destroy Crash when he gets abducted as well. Crash and Cortex find themselves in a galactic racing circuit, where the ruler of the galaxy, Emperor Velo XXVII, forces them to race for his people's entertainment until they can go free, or let the Earth be destroyed. With no other choice, Crash and Cortex agree to participate in the races. The second racing game and the first console Crash game developed by Vicarious Visions, Nitro Kart was to Crash Team Racing what Wrath of Cortex was to Crash 3.

Crash Twinsanity (2004) — Cortex lures Crash into a trap in yet another attempt to destroy the bandicoot, but they are interrupted by the arrival of strange evil twin parrots from another dimension who want to destroy the world and seem to have some sort of grudge against Cortex. Crash and Cortex have no choice but to team up and stop the twins from wreaking havoc. Developed by Traveller's Tales' Oxford division.

Crash Tag Team Racing (2005) — A popular autoracing theme park with a high casuality rate has its Power Gems stolen, and its founder, Ebeneezer Von Clutch, recruits Crash and Cortex to help find them and bring them back before the park is shut down, with Von Clutch himself going down with it, as his life depends on one of his gems. Whoever finds all the Power Gems first gets to be the new owner of Von Clutch's MotorWorld. This is the third racing game in the franchise, and the first Crash game to be developed by Radical Entertainment. The game was an attempt at combining everything the Crash games had ever been, including platforming sections and minigames in between the racing. On top of that, several changes went afoot - Crunch suddenly transformed into an Affectionate Parody of Mr. T for no apparent reason, Cortex started showing himself to be even more of a woobie than in Twinsanity, and above all, Crash finally gained a voice (albeit talking entirely in gibberish).

Crash Boom Bang! (2006) — A Tasmanian devil called the Viscount is searching for the fabled Super Big Power Crystal as it has the power to grant wishes, but as his quest is ending in failure, he decides to con unsuspecting people into helping him, so he sends them invitations to the "World Cannonball Race". Of course, Crash and Cortex are among those who are invited. The Viscount sends the contestants to find and give him four stone tablets (so the location of the crystal can be revealed), but Cortex ruins everything by attempting to steal the map and ends up tearing it apart. This makes the Viscount confess the truth of the situation to everyone, so they are willing to help him find the Crystal in turn for a great sum of money. This is the second party game to be released, and is developed by Dimps, being the first game to be developed by a Japanese company.

Crash of the Titans (2007) — Cortex has been stealing mojo from the Temple of Zoom to create an army of Titans and is constructing a Humongous Mecha called the Doominator. He even goes as far as to capture Coco. However, Uka Uka decides to fire Cortex and appoint Nina in his place. She immediately takes over her uncle's operations and brainwashes Coco to work on the Doominator. Crash must stop Nina by "jacking" the various Titans they've created and using their powers to progress through the level. The first Crash game developed for seventh-generation consoles (Wii and Xbox 360, as well as the PS2, being the Daddy System it is) and the first main game developed by Radical Entertainment, it was most notable for the introduction of a major character redesign to the entire cast and a horde of Powerup Mounts in the eponymous Titans.

Crash: Mind Over Mutant (2008) — Cortex and N. Brio reunite to develop a personal digital assistant called the NV in order to control the now-dormant Titans and bandicoots. Crunch and Coco become affected, but Crash does not, once again leaving it up to him to save the day.

Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D (2008) — A racing mobile game published by Activision. Cortex teams up with Oxide and they stage a racing tournament to challenge the protagonists, where the losing team is banished from N. Sanity Island. Later got a sequel titled Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 2 which is essentially the original improved in pretty much every area.

Crash Bandicoot Mutant Island (2009) — In a mashup of Titans and Mind's plots, Crash must stop Cortex when he creates a giant robot and begins distributing mind-controlling headsets to the inhabitants of the island. The game goes back to the days of old school side-scrolling platformers, with Crash running, climbing, jumping, and swinging throughout his journey. In contrast to the two games mentioned Titans are the game's bosses, where there are only 3 of them and in order to defeat them you must first climb them to tame them (by tickling them, no less), and once you've tamed them, they shrink down to a more affordable size and you can summon them at any time.

Crash Nitro Kart 2 (2010) — A Java-based mobile phone racing game that is a successor to Crash Nitro KartIn-Name-Only, bringing back some familiar faces and adding a new one (a panda named Yaya). Noticeably reverts back to the original aesthetics of the series, with only a few remnants of Radical's retool (and even changes by previous developers) still apparent.

Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy (2017) — A collection of the original PS1 games remade from the ground up with PS4 graphics by Vicarious Visions. Historically, Vicarious Visions' Crash games have always been the most faithful to Naughty Dog's, so they're a great fit (incidentally, they were also in charge of making sure Crash's appearance in Skylanders was faithful to his roots).

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (2016) — Another Naughty Dog game that features an unskippable level of the first Crash Bandicoot game. This is not an emulation, but actually a complete remake of the original game from the ground up, which Naughty Dog seemingly did solely for the sake of a cool easter egg, or possibly to promote the upcoming HD remakes.

Skylanders: Imaginators (2016) — When a wormhole opens up connecting Skylands with Wumpa Island, Crash decides to join the Skylanders to help fight off Kaos's Doomlanders. The "Crash Edition" of the game comes with playable Crash and Cortex toys and a level set on Wumpa Island. Crash's appearance here is fitting seeing as Skylanders began life as a spinoff of the Spyro franchise, with which the Crash franchise has a long history of crossing over. This marks the first time Crash and Spyro can fight side-by-side in the same game, albeit this is a different Spyro from the one Crash met before. The Wii U version, with its console-exclusive toys, also marks the first time Crash can team-up with characters associated with a certainmustache-man plumber-boy the marsupial once held a grudge with back in 1996.

This game series provides examples of:

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Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The sewer levels in the second game has Crash running rather freely inside them. It becomes even more spacious in CTR's Sewer Speedway, a whole race track in a giant sewer pipe.

A few of the earlier games had levels where you run from a giant boulder (or a giant snowball, or a giant polar bear, or a triceratops...). The worst part being that you're running toward the camera, making obstacle dodging and box collecting very much a process of trial-and-error.

Aerith and Bob: Alongside characters with names like Crash, Dingodile and Nefarious, a lot of its characters have normal names, but with the exception of Coco and Nina, they're part of a pun (Neo Cortex, Victor and Moritz).

Alien Abduction: Crash Nitro Kart starts with Velo abducting both Team Bandicoot and Team Cortex to force them to participate in the galaxy racing tournament.

Aliens Speaking English: Crash Team Racing and Crash Nitro Kart have aliens of several different species as villains, and all of them speak perfect English. This is especially bad in Crash Nitro Kart where Velo speaks to his fellow subjects in English. Maybe justified with at least Terra, where it's admitted it was based on Earth.

Tawna's absence in later games was hand waved in some official bios, stating she had dumped Crash for Pinstripe Potoroo shortly before the second game.

The Wrath Of Cortex's manual divulges on a lot of unseen depths and origins about the cast, among them being Coco and Tiny also being mutants created by Cortex. It also explains the games' crystals being utilized to seal away the Elementals once again (their fate never explained in the game).

The Japanese version of Crash Nitro Kart has a different theme song. It can be found here.

Some of the music in the Japanese versions of early Crash Bandicoot games were altered as well. For example, there's this.

Amazing Technicolor Population: A staple of the series. Cortex has yellow skin, N. Tropy has blue skin, Nina has chalk white skin (later becoming deep blue), as does N. Gin in the Radical games, and Von Clutch from Crash Tag Team Racing has green skin. Just about the only human characters who have normal skin colors are Papu Papu, N. Brio, N. Gin prior to the Radical games and Madame Amberly.

Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Most of the evolved animals have normal coloured coats/skin, with the exception of Crash, Coco and Tawna, who are orange, and Ripper Roo, who is blue. More startling with the bandicoots because Crunch is closer to an actual eastern barred bandicoot (Crash's species) in color.

American Kirby Is Hardcore: Crash was "cutened" up for the Japanese release. He even got a funky dance created by the Japanese that was carried back into the American versions. Some have speculated that this design change combined with Radical Entertainment's radical character redesigns that would make such things look awkward is what's making Radical's Crash games a no-go for the Japanese.

Animesque: All of the Trophy Girls in Crash Team Racing qualify to some extent, especially Megumi.

Crash Boom Bang is the only game in the franchise to have been developed in Japan, and as a result the character design and overall aesthetic of the game has an obvious anime flair to it.

Anti-Frustration Features: In the first three games, if you failed at a level a certain number of times, the game would give you a free Aku Aku mask (an extra hit point). It would also (after many, many more failures) turn miscellaneous boxes into checkpoints (respawn points for when you die).

Arch-Enemy: Crash Bandicoot has Doctor Neo Cortex. In the same series there is also the rivalry between sentient voodoo mask twin brothers Aku Aku and Uka Uka.

A map very vaguely and quickly shown in the intro scenes of Warped show the islands as somewhere between Australia and South America, though seemingly closer to Australia/New Zealand.

Art Shift: Mind Over Mutant enjoys abusing the art shift for its animated FMVs for no apparent reason other than to amplify its wackiness. Across the seventeen such scenes, there are twelve art styles used in total!

Backtracking: While the first game's lack of a crate-counter-save option (included in the checkpoints in the sequels) may hint that said game required this strategy (it didn't; dying usually requires you to start over the level in order to get the 100% Completion), Crash Bandicoot 2 pretty much ran on this. It was actually what may or may not have discouraged many gamers from fully completing the game, especially given that you couldn't rotate the camera (it zooms out if you backtrack, though) and, most infuriatingly, some levels are insanely difficult to backtrack. To wit: Diggin' It. You need to backtrack after getting a few crates in the skull route, in order to get roughly seven more crates or so. It wouldn't be so difficult if there wasn't an un-destroyable Mook Maker, a beehive. And every Bee was defeatable, but you didn't see until it was too late; the only way you could expect it was its buzzing.

Badass Adorable: Coco, being a teenage-looking humanoid bandicoot and is quite pretty, yet can also go in her own adventure starting in the third game. And arguably Crash himself due to his mannerisms. These two bandicoots are able to pilot biplanes, submarines, spaceships, motorcycles, jeeps, and even tigers to get the crystals, and have faced some insane and/or superpowered mutants and scientists (including a reality warper) in order to stop Cortex's plans.

Twinsanity: The Evil Twins (Victor and Moritz) of the main plot, N. Tropy of the sub-plot.

Tag Team Racing: Willie Wumpa Cheeks.

Crash of the Titans: Uka Uka or Cortex. Until the first boss, when it becomes Uka Uka or Nina.

Mind Over Mutant: Cortex. This time he even overpowers Uka Uka.

Big Ball of Violence: Crash Twinsanity has this as a gameplay feature during moments when Cortex just gets too pissed off at Crash and the two end up as this. The player then has to roll them like a hamster ball through the upcoming obstacle course. If the ball is left still, an Idle Animation will play of one of the two characters getting the upper hand, including one where Cortex... spanks Crash...

Big Little Brother: Light example. Coco, depending on the game alternates between being taller or shorter than her "big brother" Crash. She is however consistently more mature and intelligent than him, though to varying levels.

Bilingual Bonus: Von Clutch occasionally throws some German into his otherwise mostly English dialogue. (Also overlaps with Poirot Speak.)

Blackout Basement: Common in the series: The first game features the levels "Lights Out" and the hidden level "Fumbling in the Dark", where the player has to pick up an Aku Aku mask for illumination. Get hit once or dilly-dally around too long without picking up a new mask, and you lose your light source. The sequels swapped these out for glowing insects, keeping the time limit but removing the one-hit penalty. The second game includes the levels "Night Flight" and the secret "Totally Fly", while the third only features one such level, named "Bug Lite".

Body Surf: Crash throughout Crash of the Titans. "Jack" a Spike with Aku Aku, then keep Body Surfing on up the chain of more powerful mutants!

Bonus Stage: The first Crash Bandicoot had bonus stages that could be gotten to by collecting three of certain items. Later games have 2 kinds of this: one where Crash jumps onto a special platform that will take him to the bonus stage that contains lots of boxes and Wumpas, and another that's usually marked with a skull-and-crossbones and are usually much harder, hence the nickname "Skull Route".

Bootstrapped Theme: Crash Bandicoot: Warped's main theme became the theme of the whole series for a while.

In the first game, Ripper Roo is invincible. The only way to harm him is to jump on TNT that's moving down the river between the two platforms and hope that the explosion hurts Ripper Roo. In the third game, N. Tropy has you at the far end of the arena from him, and thus you can't do a thing, not having a distance attack. Until he switches the platforms to create a direct trail to him... and then takes that moment to catch his breath and stop attacking you.note If you go back to fight him again after getting the Death Tornado Spin and uses it to get to Tropy earlier than intended, he'll stab his tuning fork on the ground that creates a blast that kills you instantly.

In the same game, Dingodile, who is also not invincible.note You can try entering his boss stage again after getting the Double Jump; slide + double jump can let you leap over his barrier and hit him directly. However, he is protected by a barrier of crystals... until he decides to blast you with his flamethrower through it, destroying large chunks of it with each shot.

Boss-Only Level: Every game before Crash Twinsanity does this with every boss, more noticeable in the original where the boss levels are counted as part of level completion. After Twinsanity, this is largely averted as bosses are typically used to end levels, although the DS version of Crash of the Titans plays it straight and in the console version of the same game, every level with a boss fight is pretty easy and fairly short, discounting the tougher boss battle.

Bottomless Pits: A staple of the series, usually accompanied with a whistling sound as Crash falls to his doom.

Crash Bandicoot and Doctor Neo Cortex in Crash Twinsanity, though Cortex initially considers it a combination of his brilliant intellect and Crash's vacuous stupidity at first. In the end, most of the time Crash just winds up whacking things with Cortex.

Crash and Coco are regularly depicted as such. The most recurring formula for the series involves Coco creating devices or providing intellectual assistance as Crash collects MacGuffins to power them. Crash is at least intelligent enough to use a lot of Coco's inventions himself however, while Coco also sometimes provides physical support.

Also, the Komodo Bros. Komodo Joe is lean yet intelligent, Komodo Moe is brawny yet... not so intelligent. The two make a formidable team.

Brainwashed and Crazy: Done a lot in the series, courtesy of Dr. Cortex's specialty of turning animals into his loyal slaves (to varying degrees). His signature Cortex Vortex is his Mind-Control Device, and the entire plot of Crash Bandicoot 2 is Cortex building a massive laser gun on his spaceship - the second iteration of the Cortex Vortex - to brainwash the planet. In The Wrath of Cortex, Crunch is brainwashed by Cortex to work with the Elementals and try to kill Crash. In Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced, Crunch, Coco and Fake Crash are brainwashed by N. Trance into trying to kill Crash. In Crash Nitro Kart, N. Trance brainwashes Polar, Pura and Dingodile to form an entire race team to put against the Bandicoot. In Crash of the Titans, Coco is brainwashed to work on the Doominator (thus trying to wipe out Wumpa Island... and kill Crash). In Mind Over Mutant, Crunch, Coco, and a lot of mutants are brainwashed with the NVs to turn evil... and try to kill Crash. Let's do some maths; not counting the mutants, there have been ten cases of brainwashing, six individuals involved, across five games, with two of the individuals being brainwashed and crazy three times. This does not take into consideration all the mutants in the latter-most game, which could make the individuals and cases into the hundreds or thousands. Oh, and we haven't even mentioned the whole deal with the Cortex Vortex and Cortex Commandos. If Code Geass is "Brainwashed: the Series", Crash Bandicoot is easily "Brainwashed and Crazy: the Series".

The later games have some notable instances. In Crash Twinsanity, a skunk in one of the opening stages expresses his displeasure at having acted as a common enemy to get stomped on for ten years, and a group of penguins hold Cortex hostage for his power crystal, with him arguing that the reason that he couldn't pay them was because The Wrath of Cortex didn't sell as well as he had hoped. In Crash of The Titans, Tiny Tiger berates Crash for not including him in the previous video game (Crash Tag Team Racing), and Uka Uka prolongs a cutscene so he can enjoy the dramatic music. Mind Over Mutant features Nitrus Brio angrily shouting out how he was in the first game.

Also, during some of the Enemy Chatter in Titans, the Voodoo Bunnies are discussing Uka Uka's personality issues, saying that he's feeling self-conscious about not having a body, and mentioning that "He had body briefly in Twinsanity, but that was no fun for nobody".

Brick Joke: In one cutscene in Mind Over Mutant, Cortex complains about finding a piece of lettuce in the urinal, wondering who would eat a sandwich while using the bathroom. After he's defeated for good and the space station is falling, a random Mook walks out of the bathroom, eating a sandwich.

Park Drone: Again, you come back to haunt me?! Like some kind of haunting thing?! Haunting... and coming back?!

Actually seems to be a favored trope with the newer Radical games, a large amount of random gameplay quotes not devoted to cultural parody humor usually have the characters go blank and irregularly mangle their sentence, outtake style. Even Big Bads like Cortex and Uka Uka drift into this on occasion though Coco is perhaps the biggest culprit...and stuff.

The Brute: Tiny, a gigantic, overly muscled brute of a thylacine, who prefers attempting to stomp Crash flat or smashing him with his muscles.

Almost as bad are poor N Gin, or poor Crunch, or poor Crash, heck, nearly every character has undergone some horrible amount of Amusing Injuries in the franchise.

Camera Abuse: In Warped, getting smacked by a two-headed scientist ogre-troll-thing would result in Crash getting splattered against the screen.

Canon Immigrant: Some minor characters and events are based on those from Japanese media such as the manga series. Penta Penguin originated from Dansu! De Jump! Na Daibouken for example, as did the often officially supported claim that Tawna dumped Crash for Pinstripe. Crash's trademark victory dance also originated from Japanese commercials for the first game. Even Fake Crash is this, having been created by the Japanese marketing team for promotional materials for the second game before Naughty Dog had him make occasional appearances in the third game as a joke.

Chekhov's Gun: Coco's transpalooper (aka "the purple thingy") in Titans. Also the gems in the second and third game; while collecting the crystals lets you advance forward and fight the bosses (including the final one), the gems are only useful in the very end.

Tawna, Crash's girlfriend from the first game, was pretty much removed from the series from the second game and onward, after her intended character design was bowdlerized from the original concept due to executive meddling. The designers lost interest in her and came up with a flimsy excuse for her absence (she dumped Crash for Pinstripe Potoroo of all characters). Her sole return appearance so far was in Crash Boom Bang, the lowest rated game in the series. Jason Rubin (the co-creator of the Crash Bandicoot series) revealed that shortly after the original Crash was released, Lara Croft (ironically) took the gaming world by storm, causing the marketing director of Universal Interactive Studios (the one responsible for the meddling in the first place) to leave.

N. Tropy - aside from a small cameo in Boom Bang! - hasn't been seen since Twinsanity.

Collision Damage: Colliding with just about any enemy will send Crash flying to that Australian outback in the sky. Same goes with Coco and, in N-Tranced, Crunch.

Cool and Unusual Punishment: In Mind Over Mutant, Cortex starts milking Uka Uka for Bad Mojo to use to control mutants. Cortex has Grimlies feed Uka Uka cake while he's strapped to the machine so that he's horribly traumatized by the experience and unable to even touch cake again. And for good measure, they feed him a dirty piece.

Crate Expectations: Crash Bandicoot not only sees levels filled with crates, but destroying all of them in all levels are required to reach the full 100% Completion. In fact, crashing through crates is one of the series' defining gameplay elements, as well as the origin of the protagonist's name.

Creative Closing Credits: Starting with Crash Tag Team Racing, the ending credits feature commentaries from assorted characters, often saying something amusing about the games' staff members. In CTTR, this was omitted from the PAL release of the game, for some reason, but the PAL versions of both Titans and Mind Over Mutant feature it. In CTTR, the commentary is provided entirely by Cortex and N. Gin, but later games feature some of the other characters, too (although less prominently).

Creepy Twins: Crash Twinsanity has the Evil Twins, a pair of alien bird-thingy, as the Big Bad. They're revealed to be the two parrots that young Cortex had experimented his prototype Cortex Vortex on and got accidentally warped into the 10th dimension.

Degraded Boss: Several of the bosses in the series, most notably Ripper Roo, Tiny, and N. Gin.

Denser and Wackier: Sort of. The series was already rather comical and zany, but it had a bit of story and was more Looney Tunes in style. The later games became much more Ren and Stimpy-ish in tone (not helped by being written by Spumco refugees), amping the slapstick and stupidity to five hundred.

Double Jump: A recurring power in the series, starting from the third game.

Double Unlock: 100% Completion in Crash Team Racing requires all 18 relics, which merely requires a solid time trial time in all 18 races. Oh, but one of those races is only unlocked by getting all 5 gems. Gems can be earned in cup races, which themselves are locked until you get 4 CTR tokens for each, plus you need two out of four Boss Keys to even access the room with the portals to the cup races and the first cup race cannot be opened until you have at least three keys.

Down the Drain: It also had the 'Tomb Wader' level set in a nilometer where the water level constantly shifted.

The Dragon: Nitrus Brio in Crash Bandicoot, Doctor Neo Cortex in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, Py-Ro the Fire Elemental in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, Doctor Nefarious Tropy in Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced. Tiny and N Gin also often act as Co-Dragons to Cortex through the series.

The first game had a completely finished level called "Stormy Ascent" cut from the final version. The level resembles "Slippery Climb" in terms of design, only it's A LOT harder. The level was probably cut due to difficulty on account of being the hardest level in the original game and is probably the hardest level in the entire series.

Also, Sunset Vista was originally going to be longer and much harder.

The Wrath of Cortex uses a few areas from early development and planted new levels on top of them. Ice Station Bandicoot for example uses a small platforming area as a background under the helicopter racetrack. An unused racing and dogfight level have also been found inside the game, as well as some extra Coco animations suggesting she was meant to be more fully playable.

Twinsanity had the most dummied out content, however, with stages, alternate dimension counterparts of Coco and Cortex, and even whole other dimensions.

Dynamic Difficulty: Added checkpoints and bonus hits in the form of a free Aku Aku mask if you die enough times.

Early Installment Weirdness: Keys and random colored gems in the first game, and arbitrarily awarded gems and secret portals in the second. The first game also has the annoying issue of only being able to save in bonus rounds (which cannot be reattempted), and there are no crystals. Instead, you have to fight your way through the islands in order to defeat Cortex. Cortex also has a noticably different voice in the first game, provided by Brendan O'Brien, that sounds nothing like the deep toned Clancy Brown and Lex Lang performances that followed.

Enemy Chatter: The Xbox 360 version of Crash of the Titans has an achievement for listening to enemy chatter.

Escort Mission: Crash Twinsanity includes two Doc Amock sequences, wherein Dr. Cortex is forced to run down a preset path (while being harassed by bees, their nest and a honey-hungry bear the first time around, and by Crash's evil duplicate in the second), while Crash must take another path whilst disabling the hazards on Cortex's route. The sequences were generally well received, thanks to its exhibition of the game's excellent Cortex-abuse-centric humor.

The third quarter of the original Crash Bandicoot consists mostly of this (levels such as Heavy Machinery, Cortex Power and Generator Room), with Crash roaming through Cortex's enormous power plant which, on the surface, doesn't seem to serve much of a purpose other than to dump tons and tons of radioactive sludge into the nearby oceans.

The late game stages of the second and third Crash Bandicoot games also indulged quite a bit on this.

Everything Fades: The PS1 games just showed enemies flying into the distance after being slapped by the titular character. Unless you jumped on them, in which case they disappeared in a cloud of smoke, occasionally being flattened first.

The second game and the third have extra levels that you can only access after beating the final boss. Crash Team Racing also plays similarly in that the Adventure Mode doesn't stop after you beat Oxide - you have to collect all the relics and then beat him again.

Crash Bash also has extra minigames that can only be accessed after you beat the final boss.

Both of the GBA games have this. If you beat the final boss with all the gems in The Huge Adventure, all the bosses in the game fuse together, and you're subjected to a race to the end of an extra level before the boss hits you.In N-Tranced, collecting all the gems allows you to avert Doctor Nefarious Tropy's Villain: Exit, Stage Left! and give you a batch of new levels, climaxing with a battle with Doctor N. Tropy himself.

The large majority of the cast have evolved into expies or parodies of celebrities or pop culture figures via Radical's redesign of the franchise (eg. Crunch is an expy of Mr. T, N. Gin is one of Peter Lorre, Tiny of Mike Tyson). One of the larger criticisms of the Radical titles is how unique characterization has been replaced with stock characters and parodies.

It is perhaps worth noting that half of these Expies in fact have closer connection to previous Expies of said celebrities. For example, Tiny and the Ratnicians probably closer resemble Dederick Tatum (Mike Tyson) and Prof. Frink (Jerry Lewis) from The Simpsons respectively than the actual figures they are based on.

Fanservice: Crunch and Tiny are easily the most identifiable characters when it comes to being muscular and strong. Then somewhere along the line, THIS happened to Crash.

Fantastic Fruits and Vegetables: Wumpa fruits, Crash's Trademark Favourite Food. They appear to be a cross between apples, peaches, and mangoes, but their insides contain purple juice, as revealed when Crash gets splattered by one. In Japan, they're even called "apples". Collecting 100 of these grants Crash an extra life, and in certain games they refill his health bar. Even more bizarrely, Wumpa fruits can also be used as pretty painful Edible Ammunition.

Fate Worse Than Death: Dr. Cortex is trapped in Crash's brain with thousands of miniature Crashes at the end of Twinsanity.

Fetish: Played for laughs in Mind Over Mutant: Walk up to the Architect in the Raticicle Kingdom while jacking a TK. As he speaks nonsense, he has a translator with him all the time. Anyways, the Translator says "The Architect is not impressed by a telekinetic chicken. I disagree! I think that thing is hot!"

Go-Karting with Bowser: Judging by the way the original developers handled the franchise, Crash Bandicoot seemed to have a bit of this going on with Doctor Neo Cortex, specifically in Crash Team Racing where the good guys and bad guys are all just go-karting along before the plot happens... and then they all go-kart around some more.

Several of Crash's death sequences in his second and third PlayStation games reveal he wears pink boxers with red hearts.

As an odd consequence of animation re-usenote specifically, the death animation for underwater mines, when Crash completes an underwater level in Warped, his boxers drift away along with his scuba gear.

The Wizard enemies in the third game have white boxers with pink dots.

In the Gag Reel of Tag Team Racing, Crash is wearing white boxers with red hearts instead.

At the end of Mind Over Mutant, Cortex fights Crash in his red polka-dot briefs after he hulks out of his clothes.

In the platformer games, spinning an enemy towards another will give you bonus wumpa fruit; you can also spin an enemy towards crates to break them from a distance.

In Twinsanity, there are sections where Crash is carrying Cortex around. He can use Cortex to smash crates and enemies, or throw him towards a specific place for puzzle solving. One boss fight even relies on you throwing Cortex towards the boss' mouth.

Groin Attack: Happens to Cortex (via Coco's well-placed kick) in Twinsanity ("My crystals!"), and Crash also does this to a Grimly in the opening demo movie of Mind Over Mutant.

Ground Pound: Crash Bandicoot gains a Ground Poundcake attack in the second game, with which he can belly-flop onto unsuspecting enemies or bust open metal-enforced crates that would otherwise seem impenetrable. The third game upgrades it.

Guest Fighter: Spyro. In the GBA version of Crash Nitro Kart. And they note (Insomniac Games, that is.) say they have abandoned doing Spyro games because his actions are pretty limited? Why? Just look how he drives!

The secret level side areas, starting off in the original, where you had to guess which levels gave which colored Gems, allowing you to get the normal Gems. The third game had 2 secret levels that almost certainly needed to be performed either by accident, or with a guide. One had you crash into a specific sign in a motorcycle level (even though it looks different to the rest of them), and another had a trigger where you had to get to a bonus gem level, and then die on a certain enemy, which - instead of killing you, would take you to a secret stage.

Not to mention the second game's secrets. In that game, you had to fall down a hole that normally would kill you (with no indication that you should jump down there), body slam on a specific plant, go back after being thrown off Polar once finishing a level, go through a seemingly solid wall, and jump on boxes which under normal circumstances will kill you.

The blue gem in the first level of Crash Bandicoot 2? Go to the end of the level without breaking a single box. In a series where breaking every box you see becomes a compulsion, it may be difficult to find out. After completing the level once, it will give a clue in the form of "XX/0" in the warp going back to the main warp room.

Hollywood Natives: The tribesmen of N. Sanity Island, who worship various monoliths and attempt to capture and/or eat anything that entered their territory. They are led by Papu Papu, an obese chieftain who wears a grass skirt and has his hair tied up in an elaborate tribal mask/headdress.

Hub Level: Most of the hubs from Crash 2 onwards are small rooms with a bunch of doors, but Crash Team Racing has a bigger hub akin to Diddy Kong Racing. Twinsanity, Nitro Kart and Tag Team Racing have one hub per world.

Humans Are the Real Monsters: More than half of the major villains in the Crash games are evil human scientists who pollute the environment, conduct cruel animal experimentation, and try to take over the world.

100% Completion: Several Crash Bandicoot games have taken it all the way up to 120% and above. Crash Bash features up to 200%, but good luck getting there.

Iconic Sequel Character: The series mainstay hero Coco and villains Tiny Tiger and N. Gin are introduced in the second game, while the other ones Dingodile and N. Tropy in the third one, and Nina in the fifth.

Idiot Hero: Crash is either easily duped or a victim of circumstances. Nevertheless, his determination always moves him forward.

The Igor: For Cortex, there's Doctor N. Gin in the new Radical games, and N. Brio in the first game.

Immune to Mind Control: Given Brainwashed and Crazy above, it's lucky that Crash is this. It's even noted in the first game that Crash has been subjected to the Cortex Vortex - which is what Cortex used to brainwash all his other mutants - multiple times.

Cortex: Failure again! Capture him!

Indy Escape: Every platformer game in the series has at least one of this.

Infant Immortality: Used with Polar in the second game. While Crashcan kill himself in numerous ways in the snow levels, the little bear cub is shown making his way out of each obstacle completely unscathed (in one Crash's angel is even shown ascending upward carrying the still alive and unharmed Polar in his arms). Used near identically with Pura in Warped (at least one instance subverts this however, with Coco jumping out of harm's way just before the baby tiger runs smack into a pile of barrels).

The original Crash Bandicoot has an extremely blatant Sampo about four or five levels before the endgame: To the right of your spawn point, a gap. Beyond that gap, the exit to the level. Normally, players would have to drop down the gap and walk through the rest of the level to reach the exit, unless they happen to have a Green gem, in which case a green platform appears next to your spawn that allows you to ride your way straight to the exit and grab twenty five extra lives on the way.

In Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, in the second hub (ice theme) the player can jump on Polar in front of one of the level warps, flattening him. Doing so repeatedly will give you several lives.

Also in the second game was the secret passage in a certain level where you would drop down from the broken bridge after a giant polar bear smashes through it, and about midway in would be 2 hidden crates right after a checkpoint containing 2 one ups in which you could die and continue to break the crates and receive the reward.

Iron Butt Monkey: Though Cortex may be the top butt monkey, Crash seemingly goes through the largest amount of horrific Amusing Injuries throughout the series' run, depending on how many lost lives (and thus brutal cartoon deaths) you suffered during gameplay.

Jiggle Physics: The only reason Naughty Dog's character designers thought it was a good idea to include Papu Papu as a boss in the original Crash Bandicoot was because the animators loved to animate jiggling fat. The trophy girls in Crash Team Racing also jiggle.

Jive Turkey: Cortex attempts this during the credits of Crash Tag Team Racing.

Cortex: Oh, Jeff. What is up, big dawg? How's it hanging in the 'hood?

Joke Character: Coco was often this in the earlier games, either being a weaker skin of Crash with less abilities, or even just a limited vehicle rider that can only walk and jump otherwise. Most of her levels it would be more productive to just play as Crash. Mind Over Mutant subverts this by making her a co op character who matches all of Crash's abilities, thus still redundant but at least useful.

Cortex in the third game gets awfully calm and observant regarding Crash's journey of getting the crystals and beating his henchmen. Even before his boss fight, he notes that he's supposed to be angry (for Crash getting all the crystals) when he instead laughed.

The fact that Crash and the other bandicoots do not resemble the real life creatures on which they are based is randomly mentioned by N. Gin in Titans, during one of his lunatic tirades: "YOU DON'T EVEN LOOK LIKE A BANDICOOT!"

More fun with N. Gin: during his levels in Titans, he openly wonders why he doesn't send all of his minions at once.

"Oh, c'mon! He didn't even have a cup!"

The absence of Crash and Coco's parents is lampshaded in Tag Team Racing: if Crash spin-attacks Coco, one of the things she says is "I'm telling mom... if we had one!"

This is also referenced in Mind Over Mutant, when, if spin-attacked by Crash, Coco says something to the effect of "I'm telling mom! Who is she, anyway?".

In addition, in Mind Over Mutant, one of the locals at the Ratcicle Kingdom comments that Crash's father was eaten by a fox...

Doctor Neo Cortex and Doctor Nitrus Brio are especially hammy in the Radical Entertainment era of the series.

Cortex: And I shall call this robot... THE DOOMINATOR!!Cortex: I promise. From now on, I'll be more rancid! More villainous! More horrible! HORRIBLE!!Brio: I... was in... the first... GAAAAAAAME!!Brio:Strike him with your large man-hand!** Not to mention N. Gin, especially in the Radical Entertainment era.

N. Tropy certaily qualifies, too.

"Now you're on my time, you little SKUNK! GIVE ME THE CRYSTALS!"

The Bratgirls from Crash of the Titans and Mind Over Mutant. "Red rover, red rover!"

Laser-Guided Tykebomb: Crunch Bandicoot in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex was created specifically to kill Crash.

Last Lousy Point: Crash Team Racing has a Last Lousy Relic. You need all the relics for a rematch against Big Bad Nitros Oxide, but to get the last relic you needed to unlock a secret race, which required five gems. Each gem in turn requires four CTR tokens and then a win in a four race tournament. The tokens and gems do count toward completion percentage, though.

Laughably Evil: Every villain in the series has their moments; even the worst villains (N. Tropy) will make you laugh once in a while.

Laughing Mad: Ripper Roo, after being exposed to different experiments from Doctor Cortex, became a raving, laughing lunatic. In fact, after his brain was tampered with, all of his dialogue consists of insane laughter with subtitles to translate. He did almost talk in CTR. Here's the cut audio.

In the earlier titles, the majority of boss characters had an individual theme that was remixed throughout each of their appearances. Cortex in particular has an eerie guitar riff used in his faceoffs in all three of the original games.

The theme of Twinsanity appears several times across the game in remixed form - for example, the music for the "twisted" version of N. Sanity Island contains the same melody, albeit slower and with a slightly darker mood.

Life Meter: Crash Of The Titans and Mind Over Mutant have conventional health meters.

Lonely at the Top: At the end of Team Bandicoot's story in Crash Nitro Kart, a deflated Velo hands Crash his empire after the bandicoots defeat him. Crash for a moment thinks eagerly of the potential, but the Imagine Spot devolves into him just sitting on his throne with him and his followers bored out of their skull. He quickly hands it back to Velo, who in contrast is quite happy to get his power back.

Loads and Loads of Loading: The early PlayStation 2 version of The Wrath of Cortex is infamous for this. Thankfully, the Platinum/Greatest Hits rerelease toned this down, while the Gamecube and Xbox ports had rather nominal load times.

Present in the PSP version of Tag-Team Racing. However, they attempt to alleviate it by making it so all face buttons cause a fart noise.

Mad Scientist: Every single villain in the Crash Bandicoot franchise is either a mad scientist or a hideously mutated anthropomorphic animal created by said mad scientists.

Notably, one of the few where the Mad Scientists are actually scientists to a degree: N. Cortex and N. Brio in the original were doing experimentation with forced evolution and monitoring responses to the Cortex Vortex. Brio even warned Cortex about their brainwashing machine still being imperfect and not having determined the cause of its past failures.

The Many Deaths of You: The series features lots of humorous death animations, intended to prevent players from snapping their controllers in frustration from dying over and over again. Notable examples include 'death' animations where Crash never actually dies like, for example, being mounted and kissed by a huge toad who turns into a handsome prince. Crash Tag Team Racing even featured a set of collectible Die-O-Rama FMVs, which demonstrated the various, comedic ways in which Crash could off himself.

Matrix Raining Code: Appears at the beginning and end of the 4th cutscene of Crash: Mind Over Mutant due to the fact that Crunch and Coco have just put their NVs on.

Meaningful Name: Several characters, mostly the villains (some of whom have punny names, as mentioned below).

Mercy Invincibility: Whenever you lose an Aku-Aku mask due to getting hit, you'll be invincible for a few seconds. In the racing games, if you fall into a pit, Aku-Aku or Uka-Uka will momentarily cover you as you're being put back on track.

Mercy Mode: Dying too many times in a given level will cause you to start re-spawning with mask power ups, which let you survive an extra hit. Even more death, even with the masks, leads random boxes to turn into checkpoint boxes.

Minecart Madness: "Dragon Mines" in Crash Team Racing, "Compactor Reactor" and "Ghost Town" in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex.

Mini-Dungeon: Aside from the Bonus Stages, the first three games in the series have special mini-stages that is accessed through special means: Collecting N. Brio or Neo Cortex icons or stepping onto a colored platform (first game) and stepping on a colored platform or skull-patterned platform, aside from other things (second and third game). These stages - often called "Gem Routes" or "Skull Routes" - are much harder than the actual levels and rarely have a checkpoint. In the case of Skull Routes, you also have to reach the place without dying beforehand. Completing succesfully the Neo Cortex stages will net you keys that open secret levels; completing the Skull Routes will net you gems (in some rare cases colored ones, which are the ones that give access to the Gem Routes). The Gem Routes themselves only have regular gems as rewards.

Minion with an F in Evil: Tiny and N. Gin are for the large part just idiots loyally following Cortex's orders. This trait is more prominant in the Radical incarnations, though as early as Nitro Kart the two are noticeably less malicious and calculating than their master.

Mirror Match: The boss fight against Fake Crash in N-Tranced. Fake Crash will perfectly mirror your movements... but the obstacles on the stage won't.

Mix-and-Match Critters: Dingodile, being a mix of a dingo and a crocodile. Likewise Rilla Roo (a gorilla and a kangaroo).

The Napoleon: While the majority of scientists in the series are vertically challenged, Cortex is suggested to have suffered the most psychological trauma from this, even going so far as to create a "Planetary Minimizer" to shrink the entire earth to the size of a wumpa fruit.

No-Damage Run: Getting gems in the first Crash Bandicoot required you finish the level without dying in addition to breaking all of the crates. In the second and third game, getting the Skull Routes require you to not die before getting to it; if you do, you can't access it.

And finally, FINALLY averted with the news that Crash is getting a remake, and will be in Skylanders.

Furthermore, the Skylanders crossover mentions that Crash came to Skylands from a wormhole on Wumpa Island, which was the setting of Crash of the Titans, so it seems to be implied that the Crash we see in Skylanders is the original (unlike the Spyro we see in it), with Skylanders Imaginators presumably taking place sometime after Mind Over Mutant.

Cortex's power station is even worse. Huge pits of bubbling toxic green waste are scattered about, there's exposed electric machines and red hot pipes and steam all over, the generator room is pitch black and has exhaust flowing around indoors, and metal platforms without rails are suspended over toxic goo or bottomless pits. At least Pinstripe gives a clear warning to be careful in the lowest part of the power station; which is where vast amounts of radioactive slime are dumped straight into the ocean.

The series tends to play like this a lot. Especially noticeable in the Naughty Dog era when most developers were attempting the opposite with the jump to 3D, ironically making it stand out as one of the few 3D games that stuck to the old linear style that dominated past eras.

Averted with some levels on Twinsanity, some sections of Crash of the Titans and Mind Over Mutant as a whole - all three are linear to an extent, but they have a lot more in the way of exploration than the other games in the series.

Also Averted with Crash Tag Team Racing.

Nostalgia Level: Crash Twinsanity opens with a jungle level, which very much evokes the mood of the (usually early-found) jungle levels of the first two games in the franchise.

Not So Above It All: The series has increasingly made more jabs at Coco, originally Crash's much more down to earth and intellectual sister, as having her own buffoonish side. By the time of N Sane Trilogy, despite still having and demonstrating the same genius IQ, she practically revels in being almost as goofy and playful as her brother.

Offer Void In Nebraska: Doctor Neo Cortex's and Doctor Nitrus Brio's commercial for the NV in Crash: Mind over Mutant ends with the announcer quickly saying "Soon to be available in everywhere but Arkansas."

Off-Model: In her two cutscenes in Mind Over Mutant, Nina has normal gloved hands instead of her robotic prosthetic hands.

One-Winged Angel: Doctor Nitrus Brio in the first Crash Bandicoot game, who drinks his own Psycho Serum to mutate into the penultimate boss. Cortex drinks this same serum in Crash: Mind over Mutantas the final boss.

Orcus on His Throne: Uka Uka spends a lot of titles barely contributing anything towards the villains' plots, leaving Cortex or another head minion to create the scheme and act as the de facto Big Bad. This was excused in the first two games, where he was still in his prison temple the ancients had banished him to eons ago.

Pass Through the Rings: Rings of Power in Warped is a special biplane level where Crash has to pass through sets of rings while racing other planes to the finish. Doing a barrel roll while passing through the rings will boost his speed.

Playing Tennis with the Boss: Koala Kong and Doctor Neo Cortex in Crash Bandicoot, Cortex again in Crash Twinsanity, Coco Bandicoot in Crash: Mind over Mutant

Plot Coupon: The Power Crystals are often required to progress to the next levels and face the bosses. The gems (and later relics) are of less importance, but you'll still need them if you want to complete the story. In the racing games and Crash Bash, you instead need trophies and keys, as well as the tokens (in the racing games) and relics.

Positive Discrimination: Arguably Coco early on while acting as the token female, super intelligent, closer to Earth and near equally skilled physically as her brother (even if outdoing Crash intelligence-wise isn't exactly much of a challenge). Notably as more female characters were inserted, Coco started to gain her own idiotic and obnoxious tendencies. Also Nina Cortex, despite being younger than other villains, actually goes on top for once and become a serious threat despite her odd traits.

Power Trio: Crash, Coco and Crunch or Crash, Coco and Aku Aku depending on how you look at it.

Power-Up Mount: Each of the Naughty Dog games had one such animal per game, with two levels in each game dedicated entirely to riding them through their respective obstacle courses (an unnamed wild boar in Crash Bandicoot, Polar the polar bear in Crash 2, and Pura the tiger, along with a baby T-Rex in Warped).

Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: Dingodile's "Break out the butter; we're gonna make TOAST!", N. Tropy's "Now you're on my time, you little skunk! GIVE ME THE CRYSTALS!" and N. Gin's "Prepare to be pulverized, bandicoot!"

Regional Bonus: Several Japanese releases of the series had extra bells and whistles added to them:

Warped adds Pocketstation support, a few unlockable FMVs, and some gameplay hints provided by Aku Aku.

The GBA version of Nitro Kart has extended versions of nearly all of the (admittedly short) music tracks for the levels.

Tag Team Racing has a completely new model for Crash to fit his regional design (the new model is available as an Easter Egg skin in the Western release however).

Remember the New Guy: While most of the Funny Animal cast are implied to have been created by Cortex or his fellow Mad Scientist cronies, a good few seem to randomly appear out of nowhere, with no implication of Cortex's hand in their existance. Even Coco seems like a random entry unless you have read bios stating she was created by Cortex shortly after Crash.

Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The Komodo Bros., the pterosaurs, and the triceratopses in the dinosaur levels of Warped are enemies. Don't forget Dingodile, who is 50% crocodile and 50% dingo. The adorably cute baby T. Rex is the only exception.

Running Gag: The "pancakes" gag throughout Titans, and the arguably more amusing "eating sandwiches whilst going to the bathroom" gag in Mind Over Mutant.

Save-Game Limits: In the original Crash Bandicoot, the only way to save your game (or collect a password) was to go from the overworld map into a level, collect a series of hidden bonus tokens and beat the ensuing bonus level, or collecting a gem by beating a level without dying while breaking all the crates in the area. And when you restored the game, you snapped back to just three lives. Fortunately, the sequels made it easy to save your progress in-between levels and keep your lives.

Scenery as You Go: the temple levels in the first game have wumpa fruit overhanging from the main path, until you walk into them.

The scrapped animated intro to the first game ends on the line "Crash! Crash Bandicoot! Be sure to buy our games so that we make lots of loot!"

Shark Tunnel: The Racing Game spinoffs Crash Team Racing and Crash Nitro Kart each include a Shark Tunnel as an underwater track, "Roo's Tubes" and "Deep Sea Driving", respectively.

Sharp-Dressed Marsupial: Pinstripe Potoroo, Ripper Roo (in his second appearance) as Doctor Roo and the Viscount Devil from Crash Boom Bang! are three male marsupials who have been seen wearing fancy, stylish clothing.

Shorter Means Smarter: Played or subverted, Depending on the Artist, Crash and Coco interchange between being the shortest of the team. The not-too-bright Crunch is consistantly taller than either of them however. Played more consistantly straight with the villains, with the vertically challenged Cortex being much smarter than large henchmen like Tiny.

Crash and Coco. The former is more simple-minded, gullible, and unable to speak, but is more action-oriented. The latter is a whiz with tech and can speak properly, but is geared more towards tech support (not to say she can't go into action sometimes).

Aku Aku the good Witch Doctor mask and his twin Uka Uka, the evil one.

The witch Doctor's mask Aku-Aku protects him (and Coco, etc) from one hit. Picking up another will give you two hits of protection, while grabbing a third will then give you temporary invincibility, which then resets back to two shields.

Crash Team Racing however changes it. The Aku-Aku mask is full invincibility (no longer an example of this trope), while the actual bubble shield item gives temporary protection from a single attack/hazard. Having ten Wumpa fruit turns the shield blue, meaning it lasts forever, so long as you don't take a hit.

The Iceberg Lab in Crash Twinsanity, the Ratcicle Kingdom in Crash: Mind over Mutant.

Crash 2 seems to take place during winter, as snow is a common feature on the islands. Notably, quite a few snow levels have a gorgeous sunset coloration.

Small Taxonomy Pools: Being set somewhere around Australia, this was bound to averted. While the obligatory Australian fauna are present (koalas, kangaroos, dingos, etc.) are present, they end up sharing the spotlight with rare or unknown creatures like potoroos and thylacines.

Smelly Skunk: The Stenches. A aversion of this is the skunks in the first game and Twinsanity.

Played straight throughout most of the early games, played with as the series went forward. In the Naughty Dog games, there is only one female character per game: Tawna in the original game, Coco throughout the latter games. Coco continues to be the only female until The Cortex Conspiracy, when Nina joins the roster. However, Nina is an evil character; she only fights on the side of good if the world is threatened by a greater evil than Uka Uka. Crash Tag Team Racing is the only game that has more than two female characters; Pasadena joins the roster for that particular game. In Crash Boom Bang!, the series enters Two Girls to a Team territory, when Tawna makes an unexpected return, and is playable alongside Coco. Later on, the series returns to Smurfette territory with Coco being the only female on the side of good, and Nina remaining firmly on the side of evil.

Crash Tag Team Racing is particularly good in this regard; the characters' good/evil alignment is utterly thrown out the window as it's pretty much a free-for-all as far as gameplay is concerned (except when it isn't). All three female characters are playable; in multiplayer, it is entirely possible (if unlikely) for Coco, Nina, and Pasadena to all be in use at once.

Snap Back: Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 2 undid most changes during Radical's tenure and utilised the designs and aesthetics of the earlier games.

Speech Impediment: Doctor Nitrus Brio used to have one in the early Crash Bandicoot series, but was removed later on.

The Starscream: Nina in both versions of Crash Of The Titans. Cortex deals with her and betrays Uka Uka in Mind Over Mutant. Half of Cortex and Uka Uka's minions also turn on them to collect the Evil Twin's treasure in Twinsanity.

Stealth-Based Mission: In "Crash Twinsanity", there are a few brief sections where you have to periodically hide from a watchman down the path until you get close enough to spin attack them.

Oh, Cortex... Why do you bother shooting at Crash with green lasers that can be spun back at you, when you could simply have continued with the red and blue ones that couldn't? Also, lowering your energy shield at the same time you blow open a hole in the floor with mines is just asking for it, really...

It gets worse in Twinsanity when he straight up tells Crash when he's about to fire the laser that Crash can knock back at him.

Many other bosses play the same way, like Ripper Roo in the second game (deliberately detonating Nitro panels with his own body for one), Tiny Tiger in the same game (you can lead him to jump into a pit), or Dingodile in the third (he shoots through and destroys the crystal barriers that protected him, making bigger openings). Justified in all 3 cases in that Ripper Roo is completely insane, Tiny is a single-minded buffoon, and, according to Aku Aku in N.Sane Trilogy, Dingodile is too caught up on trying to set things on fire to notice the damage hes causing to his barrier.

Take Me Instead: Cortex does this in Crash Twinsanity to save Nina from Crash's evil doppelganger.

Take That!: Ads for Crash Bandicoot on the original PlayStation had a guy dressed as Crash show up at Nintendo headquarters with a megaphone to taunt "Plumber-Boy". "You're hurting my elbow!"

Temple of Doom: A large number of levels in the franchise is set in a temple with loads of traps.

Teen Genius: Coco Bandicoot still looks like a young girl and yet she's good with technology, being capable of hacking into Cortex's holographic projector and then into his computer to uncover his plans. In The Wrath of Cortex she even makes her own teleporter hub similar to the Time Twister Machine.

That Poor Cat: Used in Mind Over Mutant - apparently cats don't like having empty bottles that once contained mutagen thrown at them.

Thematic Rogues Gallery: Crash's recurring foes all have something to do with Cortex or Uka Uka, with many of them being mutant hybrids modified by either of them or N. Brio, or the various Mad Scientists. The only ones outside this gallery are N. Oxide and Velo, both aliens.

Theme Naming: Many villains in the games have Punny Names containing the letter "N", such as Neo Cortex (referring to a part of the brain), N. Gin ("engine") and Nitros Oxide (N2O, a gas compound used in vehicle booster systems). This also extends to place names, like N. Sanity ("insanity") beach.

All of the bandicoots (aside from Tawna) have names beginning with "C".

Most of the evolved animals in the series have alliterative names (Tiny Tiger, Ripper Roo, Pinstripe Potoroo, etc.). The only real exceptions are the Komodo Bros who instead opt for rhyming names (Komodo Joe and Komodo Moe).

This Cannot Be!: Aku Aku does this in the intro of Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, bookended by Uka Uka doing it in the real ending.

Somewhat averted with Nash from Crash Nitro Kart - he may be a shark, but he's actually quite adorable (if obnoxious). Coco refers to him as a "poor little shark-thingy".

Throwing Your Sword Always Works: The second Boss Battle in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back sees you facing the Komodo Brothers, Joe and Moe. They are shown to have been training by throwing swords towards one another, before they see that Crash has arrived. Once the fight is started, Joe is spun at Crash, while Moe tosses his magically respawning blades at him.

One type of mook in the third game's Arabian levels can throw his scimitar at you.

Trick Boss: N. Gin in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped starts in a robot not too different from the one he used in the game before (he even tells the player he'd "made a few modifications" to the old robot he used in Crash 2), which uses similar attacks to the old one. Needless to say, it goes down after you shoot the same areas, only for it to flee, and dock with a much larger spacecraft, complete with tougher weaponry and a new life bar.

Under the Sea: Warped has its underwater levels which are fun but become very annoying under Time Trial mode. Wrath of Cortex brought back the underwater stages from Warped, but due to somewhat poor level design and the horrible controls of the submarine, tended to be annoying even outside of Time Trial.

Tiny and N Gin are usually presented as such to Cortex. They serve Nina in Titans, albeit forcibly, with N Gin ultimately giving Crash info just so he could bail Cortex out. Pinstripe is also stated as such in the manual of the first game.

Pasadena is about the only employee of Von Clutch that seems to think highly of him. While most of the park drones are banking on better paying work or odd jobs on the side, she is devotedly looking for his missing power gem.

Speaking of rail shooters, "Oxide Ride" in Crash Bash has two phases. The first is a chase sequence with laser-shooting ships. This mechanic isn't used in any of the minigames, and never comes up again.

In Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, Uka Uka is introduced as The Man Behind the Man, an extremely powerful mask that was sealed away for thousands of years. You never really fight him, all he does is act as an obstacle during the final boss battle. This isn't so bad (a mask is kind of hard to make into a full boss), but it gets really annoying in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex where there was a perfect opportunity to fight him. In that game, every boss is Crunch absorbing the powers of an elemental mask. There are four elemental masks, five bosses, you'd expect the final boss to be the recurring boss using Uka Uka's power, right? Nope. Instead, he just uses the other four masks at once, and Uka Uka does absolutely nothing during the fight except pull Cortex back to safety after you attack him.

Uka Uka does have boss fights in Crash: Twinsanity and Crash of the Titans, though he is not the final boss in either of these games.

Crash, of course, varies between this and Heroic Mime, but another example would be the Architect from the Ratcicle Kingdom in Mind Over Mutant. He has a female translator to relay what he's really saying to Crash, however, it is possible to make out random words thrown into his unintelligible dialogue.

Averted in Japanese localizations (considerably the first, where he says "LET'S GO!" (in Japanese, obviously) should only you start the level) and, for the first time ever in non-Japanese continuity, Crash of the Titans. In Crash Tag Team Racing though the pivot of Crash using this trope, it is possible to make out coherent words and even whole sentences out of his incoherent babble at times.

In the intro video of the very first game, when Crash falls out the window he clearly says "Uh-oh!"

Dr. Neo Cortex in today's games is nowhere near as malicious and sinister as his Naughty Dog depictions were. He and most of the other Doctors (notably N.Gin) are also a lot less intelligent and a lot more comical for a bunch of mad scientists now.

Played with in Mind Over Mutant. He's just as campy and deranged as ever, if not more so, but in terms of role, he takes revenge on his trecherous niece, overthrows and humilates his abusive boss and pulls an effective Not-So-Harmless Villain moment one on one fight with Crash, not to mention, lack of pants aside, makes a clean escape, avoiding his usual end of game Humiliation Conga.

Reversed for Nina who went from an adolescent assistant of Cortex in her first appearances to a devious usurper as Uka Uka's Dragon and the final boss in Titans. She ended up dealt with accordingly at the start of Mind Over Mutant however, reducing her to a minor role.

Uka-Uka went from being a Manipulative Bastard to being a Pointy-Haired Boss between Warped and Wrath of Cortex. He regained some credibility in Titans, only to fall victim to a humiliating overthrow from Cortex in Mind Over Mutant.

Played with for N. Tropy who constantly switched from being a time-pun spewing minor nuisance to a more sinister potential replacement for Cortex Depending on the Writer. His final appearance in Twinsanity seemed to play the middle ground.

Villainous Valor: Most games depict Cortex and his lackeys rather sympathetically, noting that trying to defeat Crash (despite being you, the player) is a losing battle. Still, despite his neuroses, Cortex's determination to win only increases with each face off.

Debi Derryberry's take on Coco was initially rather high pitched and feminine. Throughout the titles her voice eventually became deeper pitched and more obnoxious sounding, a tone much akin to one of Derryberry's other roles.

Lex Lang also used a near perfect replicant of Clancy Brown's soft spoken deep voice for Dr. Cortex in Crash Twinsanity. In the Radical titles Lang exagerrated Cortex's tone to be louder, higher pitched and upped his campness to eleven. Radical liked the take and actually evolved the character itself accordingly.

X-Ray Sparks: Happens to Crash starting in the second game when he gets electrocuted. His boxer shorts also become visible.

Your Size May Vary: Several characters changed sizes throughout the series, especially due to the constant redesigns. Cortex in particular ranged from being a midget even compared to the other dwarfish scientists or roughly the same height as Crash. Coco also ranged from a Big Little Sister to the smallest character of the cast. Boss characters such as Tiny and Dingodile could also range from towering over Crash to being only a head or so taller than him.

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